🦖 Dinosaurs🦖 TheropodCretaceousIconic

Spinosaurus

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus

Spinosaurus is an important case in debates about semi-aquatic lifestyles among non-avian dinosaurs.

Image: 3blindMies · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Loading map textures; the previous reconstruction stays visible...

Sites on today's globe · 1 marker

Characteristics

Scientific name: Spinosaurus aegyptiacus
Period: Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian)
Lived: 100–93 Ma (100 million years ago)
Diet: Piscivore
Habitat: Coast, Freshwater
Length (estimate): 14 m
Mass (estimate): 7,000 kg

Description

Spinosaurus had a long, narrow snout with conical teeth and tall back spines supporting a sail-like structure. Its bones, nostrils and limbs indicate a strong association with water and the capture of fish. How much time it spent in deep water and how it swam remain disputed; reconstructions have changed as new remains have been found. The original Egyptian skeleton was lost during the Second World War, making some anatomical questions difficult to resolve.

Habitat

River mouths, lagoons and coastal waters in North Africa.

Fossil sites

Bahariya Oasis, Western Desert
Bahariya Formation
Cultural profile: Egypt →

Famous finds

Iconic fossil
Stromer's Spinosaurus
Spinosaurus
Found in 1912 by Richard Markgraf
Bahariya Oasis
Museum: Bavarian State Collection, Munich (destroyed in 1944)
The first remains of Spinosaurus were found in Egypt's Bahariya Oasis in 1912 and described by Ernst Stromer in 1915. They were lost in 1944 in an Allied bombing raid on Munich: because of tensions with the museum director, a fervent Nazi, they had not been moved to safety. For a long time only Stromer's drawings and photographs remained.
Spinosaurus →
Image: w:Ernst Stromer · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Sources: Wikipedia: Spinosaurus

Contemporaries in the database

Sources: Spinosaurus

← Prehistory & Palaeontology

🦖 Dinosaurs🦖 TheropodCretaceousIconic

Spinosaurus

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus

Spinosaurus is an important case in debates about semi-aquatic lifestyles among non-avian dinosaurs.

Image: 3blindMies · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Loading map textures; the previous reconstruction stays visible...

Sites on today's globe · 1 marker

Characteristics

Scientific name: Spinosaurus aegyptiacus
Period: Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian)
Lived: 100–93 Ma (100 million years ago)
Diet: Piscivore
Habitat: Coast, Freshwater
Length (estimate): 14 m
Mass (estimate): 7,000 kg

Description

Habitat

River mouths, lagoons and coastal waters in North Africa.

Fossil sites

Bahariya Oasis, Western Desert
Bahariya Formation
Cultural profile: Egypt →

Famous finds

Iconic fossil
Stromer's Spinosaurus
Spinosaurus
Found in 1912 by Richard Markgraf
Bahariya Oasis
Museum: Bavarian State Collection, Munich (destroyed in 1944)
The first remains of Spinosaurus were found in Egypt's Bahariya Oasis in 1912 and described by Ernst Stromer in 1915. They were lost in 1944 in an Allied bombing raid on Munich: because of tensions with the museum director, a fervent Nazi, they had not been moved to safety. For a long time only Stromer's drawings and photographs remained.
Spinosaurus →
Image: w:Ernst Stromer · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Sources: Wikipedia: Spinosaurus

Contemporaries in the database

Sources: Spinosaurus

Characteristics

Description

Habitat

Fossil sites

Famous finds

Stromer's Spinosaurus

Contemporaries in the database

Characteristics

Description

Habitat

Fossil sites

Famous finds

Stromer's Spinosaurus

Contemporaries in the database